


Icarus falling

by childrenofthebarricade



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, MY BABIES ARE FINALLY HAPPY, R is a sad dork, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 05:26:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3884050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/childrenofthebarricade/pseuds/childrenofthebarricade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Icarus cannot help but fly too close to the sun, even if it means he is forever doomed to fall.”</p><p>In which Eponine teaches Grantaire about pining, Gavroche is a little shit, and Enjolras admits what he wants before it's too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icarus falling

Hello! Um, this is my first Les Mis fic, so don't judge. I just want my small lovely children to be happy.

If you like it, please leave a comment. Thanks! 

 

A week before the barricades, Grantaire woke up in a the bed of a stranger. Grantaire never woke this early, so he was surprised to see that the man beside him was still asleep. When he moved to the window to find slate grey darkness of early dawn filtering into the room, rather than the heat of a July morning, he was even more so. Glancing down at the gold curls of the stranger - Andre, Grantaire remembered suddenly through the sleepy fog of tiredness and whatever alcohol still remained in his system - Grantaire wondered if he should feel guilty for slipping away while he slept and leaving him to wake up to a cold bed and a brain full of hungover regret. But it had been clear when they had met last night at the bar in a tiny cafe that Grantaire hadn’t meant to stay for more than a night. So it was better, Grantaire thought, to slip away and spare the man the discomfort of his company in the harsh light of day. As he quickly slipped back into his clothing and out the door of the small house onto the street, he began trying to piece together his memories of the previous night, clouded as they were.

It had all started, he thought, when that bright and ridiculous gamin, Gavroche, had brought his sister to the Musian. The girl, Eponine, reminded Grantaire of a broken mirror; she had the same toughness as her brother, but none of the cheer, and she held herself like a cat-- wily and clever, untrusting, but not uncaring. Eponine had looked at all of them with big eyes like flint, and something made Grantaire wave her over to sit with him and Joly and buy her a bottle of wine.

They had talked and drank at their table in the back of the room until the meeting started, and Grantaire had discovered that she was smarter than she looked, and louder too. But once the meeting started, he discovered something else; whenever Marius spoke, her flinty eyes would grow softer and stick on him and not move away until long after he had finished speaking. Grantaire had observed this phenomenon several times that night, splitting his attention between watching Enjolras, who was pale and angelic and angry as always, and watching Eponine, with her dirty face and melting eyes. After the meeting, he had asked her about it.

“So,” he said simply, almost teasing, “Pontmercy?” Eponine had given him a sharp look, before smirking and stealing his bottle of wine. “Enjolras?” She replied.

Grantaire just scowled at the floor before snatching the bottle back from her and changing the subject. But on the walk back home, he kept thinking, _Is that really how I look at him?_

 

The next night, he had stayed away from the Musian and went somewhere else, where he’d met a boy with gold curls and a clever mouth that tasted clean, like rain clouds and ripples on water. Grantaire had tried so hard to pretend he wasn’t a replacement for someone else, but he was drunk and every time Andre kissed him, all he could think was _maybe this is what Enjolras would taste like_.

The rest of the night was muddled in his memory, but he could deduce enough of it based on the fact that he’d woken up in a virtual stranger’s bed. Grantaire knew he should wait a few nights before going back to the Musain, before seeing Enjolras again in all his righteous glory, but somehow he couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing his friends tonight. Besides, maybe Enjolras’s scathing pity would make this desperate and unfulfilled longing go away.

Grantaire stumbled up the stairs to his tiny apartment, wondering vaguely if Eponine would be at the meeting tonight. He had found that he liked her company. They were the same in many ways, he thought, although she always seemed somehow less wrecked than him, and kinder, despite everything. _She lives,_ Grantaire thought as he rubbed his eyes and put his head down on his kitchen table. It was too early for this, but his brain was dark and spat out thoughts without his permission. _I play at life the way my friends play at revolution. Bloody and hopeless._

 

The meeting that night was loud and inspired. General Lamarque was dying, and everyone was convinced that Paris was standing on the cusp of revolution. “There’s a storm brewing,” Enjolras predicted almost joyfully, “And we will be at it’s very heart.” Courfeyrac cheered and Jehan said something poetic about a phoenix rising from the ashes of death into a new world. Grantaire muttered that the death bit was accurate, but even an immortal creature is born into the same wretched world it has just left. But when Bossett nudged him and asked “Will you come to the barricades with us?” he answered simply, “I will follow you.” Of course he would follow them, they were his friends, and good ones at that. If death wanted to take them, it might as well take him as well.

And then Gavroche was there, saying that he will follow them too, that he will be at the front of the charge. Enjolras told him that he would only get underfoot, and Gavroche responded by standing on a table and making a rude gesture. “I will get under the feet of the National Guard,” he said loudly, and Grantaire laughed. “If you’ll only give me a gun I’ll raise an army of those who will get underfoot!”

“Give him a gun, Enjolras!” Bahoral laughed, and from then on, there was no chance of anything getting done in the meeting. Grantaire asked Enjolras how he felt about his revolution being taken over by children, and the scowl he received in return set fire to his insides in a way he knew didn’t happen for a moment last night when another person’s mouth was hot on his and another person’s hands were touching him.

He shook his head to dislodge the thought and watched as Combeferre struggled to stay stern and disapproving, saying that “the barricades will be no place for gamins” even as he held back a smile. Grantaire didn’t want to think at the moment, really never wanted to think ever again, just wanted the world to stay a whirl of colors and faces like it did when he was drunk, or when he was painting.

Gavroche had jumped off the table and was singing as Enjolras tried to shoo him out of the way and get back to planning the guns they’d need, the ammunition, and the men. Enjolras was yelling, his gold hair a halo around his head, and Grantaire was suddenly glad that Eponine hadn’t come. Now that she had pointed it out, he could feel his eyes growing warmer and more intent when they fixed on his Apollo. He thought stubbornly that it was only because he was trying to memorize the smooth curve of Enjolras’s nose and fix in his mind how the expression would look on canvas. Grantaire hadn’t yet quite managed to capture the way he glowed as he scribbled down plans on a bit of parchment or the fondness that caught in his expression when he looked as his friends.

“Well, this meeting is over,” Combeferre announced over Gavroche’s singing. Enjolras and Courfeyrac both started to protest, but Combeferre cut them off. “Go home and sleep,” he said, “Lamarque isn’t dead yet.”

 

And then all of a sudden, Lamarque was dead, and Grantaire’s shadowy little world was shaken up and dumped out like a cardboard box in the hands of a four year old. The meetings became anxious and rushed, a timer ticking down, down, down, to the day of Lamarque’s funeral. That was the day the barricades would rise, Enjolras insisted, the day that the people would rise up and throw off their chains. Grantaire kept coming to meetings because it was what he did, and, because it was what he did, he kept sitting in the back and drinking more than ever.

“You have no chance,” He’d say when any of his friends asked him what he thought about their revolution, “You are a group of idealistic schoolboys going up against the French army.”

He hoped that they couldn’t hear the fondness in his voice as he said over and over that there was no bright future waiting for them on the other side of the barricade. He was a cynic and a drunk; he wasn’t made for fondness or friendship. And yet he always ended with “and I’m still going to follow you.”

 

 

“Wait, R, I want to talk to you.”

Grantaire looked up in surprise. The other members of the ABC were just starting to disperse after the meeting, laughing with one another as they said goodnight and headed home. Grantaire was always the last to leave, but tonight, Enjolras had waited for him by the door.

“Apollo calls me by my childish nickname?” Grantaire responded, turning towards Enjolras. “I did not know you paid me enough mind to know it.” Enjolras bristled, and Grantaire smiled. Enjolras angry, this he understood. Enjolras gentle was what had always puzzled him.

“I have many flaws, as you seem so constantly eager to point out, but I am never deaf to my friends.”

Grantaire glanced down to hide his surprise. _Did Enjolras just call me his friend? This is a strange night indeed._

There was a long, almost uncomfortable pause before Enjolras spoke again, and Grantaire looked around, focusing on anything but the face of the man before him. It was late, or perhaps early-- these days, the meeting often went past midnight-- and the stars peeked out from wisps of grey clouds like children darting out from behind their parents’ legs. The new moon, Grantaire thought; a night for shadowy conspiracy, not bright and bold revolution.

“Why do you come to these meetings?” Enjolras’s voice brought him back to himself. “You make it quite clear you don’t believe in anything I’ve ever said. In fact you make a point of proving me wrong.” There should have been some sense of anger or at least annoyance in his face, but when Grantaire looked at him, he found nothing but puzzlement.

Grantaire shrugged. “Because Icarus cannot help but fly too close to the sun, even if it means he is forever doomed to fall.” His face burned with embarrassment. The words were meant as mockery, but they had come out a little too close to the truth. He wanted to look away, but Enjolras’s gaze did not allow it. They were standing very close to one another. Enjolras’s eyes were very blue and, for once, very fixed on him. They shone in the flickering street lights, replacing the hidden moon.

“I believe everyone is able to choose whither they fall or they fly.”

Grantaire gave a little huff of breath. “Not always. If you’ve lived your life in a dark prison cell, it is only natural to want to fly into the sun.”

“R…”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Not that Grantaire minded. The name sounded good on Enjolras’s lips; light and airy, like feathers and breath.

“Because I want to,” Enjolras responded, and again, Grantaire wanted to look away. They were too close. He was burning, he was burning, and he loved it. Enjolras swallowed, and Grantaire followed the bob of his adam’s apple with his eyes.

“And if I am to die tomorrow, perhaps it is time to admit what I want.”

“Perhaps,” Grantaire all but whispered, and then they were kissing, and Grantaire’s brain shut down and woke up all at once. It was worth burning and falling and all the rest, he thought. It was worth anything.

He remembered thinking that Enjolras would taste like rain and wondered how he could ever be so stupid. Of course Enjolras wouldn’t taste clean or peaceful, not when his body was forged for war. He was a boy born for revolution and he tasted like blood and hunger and gunpowder, and Grantaire loved him.

It wasn’t until they were both out of breath that Enjolras pulled away, and even then he was so close that their noses bumped when Grantaire let out a tiny huff of laughter. “What is it?” Enjolras asked.

“Nothing,” Grantaire whispered, tangling one hand in Enjolras’s curls as if to make sure he was real. “Just that for once I wish you would prove me wrong. I wish tomorrow wouldn’t bring us our death sentences.”

“You do not need to come to the barricades.”

“Of course I do. What would I be if I didn’t? Worse that an a coward. Worse than despicable.” Grantaire closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Enjolras’s. “I’d be alone.”

Enjolras cupped Grantaire’s cheek in one hand and kissed him again, more gently this time. Grantaire kept his eyes shut and one hand in Enjolras’s hair, and pressed into him like he needed him to breath. “Have faith.” Enjolras murmured when they parted again. “Even if we all die tomorrow, you will not be alone.”

Grantaire smiled. “I have always had faith in you.”

 


End file.
